"In my opinion, we should not have been out of the playoffs and I take responsibility for it," Lamoriello told The Star-Ledger today. "There were a lot of extenuating things. We were good enough to be in it but I had too many players here at the beginning of last year.

"It's better sometimes to have less than more. It affected the mood, the morale and other intangibles like who's playing, who's not playing and who is going to be traded?"

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“They’re the ones that makes it happen,” Lemaire said. “It’s not us. It’s not me. It’s not the other guy. It’s not the guy before. It’s not the guy after. It’s them. And they have to take care of business.”
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"I guess I just miss my friend" (#28)

I don't think one man is responsible, it was more everyone's let-down. The team just ran out of gas after that big rally in the second half of the season and stumbled at the end. It was just a matter of too many bad scenarios happening at once. It's in the past now, just getting in, and in 6th this year wiped that away. Now let's build on that and get into at least the 2nd round.

It's really a simple answer, John MacLean. It's as close as it gets to a scientific conclusion in the sports world.

Lou hired him, so the buck stops there. However, I don't think anyone foresaw how much of a disaster he would be.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

It's really a simple answer, John MacLean. It's as close as it gets to a scientific conclusion in the sports world.

Lou hired him, so the buck stops there. However, I don't think anyone foresaw how much of a disaster he would be.

mac was not a good coach but the lack of effort had just as much to do with the players as him.

we discussed this in chat though re: butterfly effect - even starting w/ trade of halischuk for arnott which, right now you might want a do-over on.

the first 1/2 of last year was brutal but there were three amazing silver linings with last year:

1) lou finally ditched the idea of "the old guard"2) we had 3 months of playoffs in the second half when any loss essentially killed the devils playoffs - it was more exciting than the previous 3 years of being in the playoffs.3) Adam Larsson

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“They’re the ones that makes it happen,” Lemaire said. “It’s not us. It’s not me. It’s not the other guy. It’s not the guy before. It’s not the guy after. It’s them. And they have to take care of business.”
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"I guess I just miss my friend" (#28)

he could've waived langenbrunner. although this probably wouldn't've been a particularly popular move.

yeah - that would've gone over very poorly - especially with his best friend parise. and i'm sure lou had high hopes that even with the logjam of guys that were top 6 players and ones that THOUGHT they were, there was enough talent to keep the devils competitive. i mean, obviously there was as the 2nd half showed. i don't want to put percentages on the amount of ingredients in the soup but the biggest ones were:

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“They’re the ones that makes it happen,” Lemaire said. “It’s not us. It’s not me. It’s not the other guy. It’s not the guy before. It’s not the guy after. It’s them. And they have to take care of business.”
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"I guess I just miss my friend" (#28)

yeah - that would've gone over very poorly - especially with his best friend parise. and i'm sure lou had high hopes that even with the logjam of guys that were top 6 players and ones that THOUGHT they were, there was enough talent to keep the devils competitive. i mean, obviously there was as the 2nd half showed. i don't want to put percentages on the amount of ingredients in the soup but the biggest ones were:

Parise missing virtually the entire season didn't help matters either.

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I collect spores, molds and fungus.Hello fellow American. This you should vote me. I leave power. Good. Thank you, thank you. If you vote me, I'm hot. What? Taxes, they'll be lower... son. The Democratic vote is the right thing to do Philadelphia, so do.How do you spot risk? How do you avoid risk? And what makes it so risky?

The thing that bothered me the most about Johnny Mac was then Lemaire came in and said the players weren't even physically in game shape. It seemed like Mac did nothing to prepare them, and they did nothing to help themselves.

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Official NJDevs.com Keeper of Gory Corey Schwab, Mike Peluso, Troy Crowder, Jeff Frazee, and Rich Shulmistra."The Devils are that zombie that takes an ax to the skull, a bullet to the temple and is set on fire … and yet keeps lumbering along to the annoyance of all the other zombies." - Puck Daddy

The thing that bothered me the most about Johnny Mac was then Lemaire came in and said the players weren't even physically in game shape. It seemed like Mac did nothing to prepare them, and they did nothing to help themselves.

Not defending JMac here, but when did Lemaire ever step into a situation and did not say that the players were not in game shape?

_________________________________________________________________
“They’re the ones that makes it happen,” Lemaire said. “It’s not us. It’s not me. It’s not the other guy. It’s not the guy before. It’s not the guy after. It’s them. And they have to take care of business.”
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"I guess I just miss my friend" (#28)

There are so many factors to blame last season on, and I think Lou has to take the biggest hit. He created a situation where if it wasn't for injuries, anyone could have been traded. That isn't a good feeling around the locker room when you know someone HAS to be dealt. It's also not great when you ask your captain to waive his no-trade clause to be dealt before the season starts or in the off-season (Jame got that no-trade clause. He deserves to say no thank you without being crucified). Maybe, you have a situation where people are pissed about Kovalchuk, the contract saga, the contract, and the cap implications it has.

Then you start the season playing 9 forwards (hey, Rod Pelley...care to play 18+ minutes a night?). You have Urbom, Taormina, and Fraser in your top 6 D (Mark Fraser...care to play 16 min a night?). That's absolutely insane when you think about it. Soon after you can add Magnan-Grenier and Corrente to that list. When you do have the right amount of guys, you throw in the likes of PLL, Tim Ses-TI-to, Gionta and Adam Mair. You got more rookies in Josefson and Tedenby playing bigger roles. You have veterans like Arnott, Langenbrunner and Rolston playing roles that are way too big for where they are at in their career (See how much time Arnott and Langs are playing this year in St Louis compared to last year).

What else? Parise injury. Kovalchuk sucking. Clarkson sucking more. More veterans complaining. Brodeur being awful. Brodeur getting hurt. Add that all up and you got a rookie coach dealing with all this where you can't even flex your muscles since you were buddy buddy with half the team before and the team is full of disgruntled veterans as it is who feel entitled to way too many things they probably don't deserve. I doubt many rookie coaches who were long-time assistants with the same team is going to do much in that situation. Maybe not that bad...but I just don't see any success coming from the disaster that was the 2010 part of the season. It truly was the perfect storm.

You then bring in the perfect coach for the situation even if the coach is the same one the team wanted gone the year before. They were so lost and there was so much time left in the year that anyone was ready to put to rest any beef they had in order to fix the issues at hand.

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"The Stanley Cup has fallen from the Stars. The new millennium has its first Stanley Cup Champion, and it's the New Jersey Devils." Mike Miller calling the Devils winning the Stanley Cup.

"It goes to the captain and then there are handoffs during a skate around the ice" Mike Emrick as Scott Stevens is being presented the Stanley Cup.

There are so many factors to blame last season on, and I think Lou has to take the biggest hit. He created a situation where if it wasn't for injuries, anyone could have been traded. That isn't a good feeling around the locker room when you know someone HAS to be dealt. It's also not great when you ask your captain to waive his no-trade clause to be dealt before the season starts or in the off-season (Jame got that no-trade clause. He deserves to say no thank you without being crucified). Maybe, you have a situation where people are pissed about Kovalchuk, the contract saga, the contract, and the cap implications it has.

Then you start the season playing 9 forwards (hey, Rod Pelley...care to play 18+ minutes a night?). You have Urbom, Taormina, and Fraser in your top 6 D (Mark Fraser...care to play 16 min a night?). That's absolutely insane when you think about it. Soon after you can add Magnan-Grenier and Corrente to that list. When you do have the right amount of guys, you throw in the likes of PLL, Tim Ses-TI-to, Gionta and Adam Mair. You got more rookies in Josefson and Tedenby playing bigger roles. You have veterans like Arnott, Langenbrunner and Rolston playing roles that are way too big for where they are at in their career (See how much time Arnott and Langs are playing this year in St Louis compared to last year).

What else? Parise injury. Kovalchuk sucking. Clarkson sucking more. More veterans complaining. Brodeur being awful. Brodeur getting hurt. Add that all up and you got a rookie coach dealing with all this where you can't even flex your muscles since you were buddy buddy with half the team before and the team is full of disgruntled veterans as it is who feel entitled to way too many things they probably don't deserve. I doubt many rookie coaches who were long-time assistants with the same team is going to do much in that situation. Maybe not that bad...but I just don't see any success coming from the disaster that was the 2010 part of the season. It truly was the perfect storm.

You then bring in the perfect coach for the situation even if the coach is the same one the team wanted gone the year before. They were so lost and there was so much time left in the year that anyone was ready to put to rest any beef they had in order to fix the issues at hand.

I still sometimes wonder what happens if we win that first game against Dallas. It felt like blowing that game on Opening Night after looking like the best team ever for ten minutes had a huge effect, far more than it should have for many of the reasons in dr's post...almost like it was a breaking point after an offseason of turmoil.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 12 April 2012 - 11:16 AM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

I still sometimes wonder what happens if we win that first game against Dallas. It felt like blowing that game on Opening Night after looking like the best team ever for ten minutes had a huge effect, far more than it should have for many of the reasons in dr's post...almost like it was a breaking point after an offseason of turmoil.

It is tough to say that, but I had the same feeling after about 10 or so games. We came out flying on opening night, looked amazing and then blew the game. It was the beginning of the end, a downhill slide from there....